A contemptible insolence

By Yang Chunhui /

Sat, Oct 15, 2005 - Page 8

On Oct. 8, in Shantou, China, Lai Fu-chu (賴福助), a visiting fisherman from Ilan, was beaten to death in broad daylight while Chinese policemen looked on.

The murderers were 20 or so local thugs, and the truck driver with whose truck Lai's car had collided. The slaying scene, as far as one can gather from the news report, mirrors eerily a chilling rampage, occasionally aired on the PBS channel, in which 20 or so chimpanzees gang up on a helpless chimp and beat him to death.

Putting the two incidents side by side, one can't but be alarmed by the savage nature displayed.

Anthropologists tell us that humans differ from chimps because humans have developed ethics and have knowledge of their consequences. This does not bear up with what happened to Lai. It was purely savage and utterly lawless.

This tragic event has several implications. First, China is still a lawless nation. Second, the brazen behavior psychologically correlates with the general attitude upheld by the Chinese leadership. Readers probably still remember vividly, not so long ago, the TV footage of the contemptuous look shown by the former foreign minister Li Zhaoxing (李肇星), as he insolently debased the legitimacy of the Taiwanese leadership.

This impudence has been bolstered by the pan-blues' servile visits to China recently.

These sycophants have verbally reiterated one after another to the Chinese leadership -- ? and worst of all to the Chinese public -- that the Taiwanese government is a faux leadership, as Li Ao (李敖) has done also lately at Fudan University.

Now, if a supposedly erudite man, albeit overtly narcissistic, and a legislator to boot, is willing to thumb his nose at the Taiwanese people, who have elected the current leadership, and declare its mandate devoid of legitimacy, what can't the Chinese do to Taiwanese visitors or business-people. Yes, servility induces impudence, and impudence warrants violence.

Third, the prided code of ethics as developed by the Chinese is a sham in its current milieu. The Taiwanese who still take a great fancy to Chinese culture may do well to bear in mind that the Confucian code of ethics has no bearing whatsoever on its current political or legal or cultural habitat.

If people like Li Ao still want to chant about the glory of Chinese culture, perceptive folks should know that he chants from his memory of things past.

When Li Ao said that "there is no need to smash Taiwan to pieces" since the Taiwanese independence movement is only a "pretend act," who was he kidding? He was basically asking a hungry tiger not to eat the rabbit, since the rabbit was only pretending to run away.

This cajoling, ironically, had not been well received by the thugs in Shantou who claimed the life of a Taiwanese visitor by smashing him to pieces.